Asari-Dokubo opposes calls for postponement of elections

The leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteers Force (NDPVF), Alhaji Mujahid Asari-Dokubo, has opposed calls for the postponement of next month’s polls.

He said the elections should be allowed to go ahead, adding that all eligible Nigerians should be allowed to vote even without the Permanent Voters Card (PVC).

He said: “From what INEC has done so far, it is not because of the violence. So many people have not collected their PVC. Look at the ojoro that is going on in INEC. Twenty of the 27 local governments in Borno are in the hands of Boko Haram, but more people have collected PVCs in Borno than in Abia State where there is no crisis.

“For me, let every person be allowed to vote without PVC. If we are going to use the PVC, then INEC is not ready. But I am not calling for the postponement of the election. We will win the election decisively. On theFebruary 14, there will be “failbuhari” and Jonathan will win decisively.

“However, my concern is what happens after the election because we know they will do what they are known to do every time. But this time, they will cry. So all Igbo people who are there, if you don’t come back home and you want to continue to be there and something happens to you, there is nobody to be blamed. If you have a child who is a youth corps member and you allow him to be there, you will not hold anybody responsible.”

Asari-Dokubo condemned the reported stoning of the President in Katsina. He criticised President Goodluck Jonathan for signing the Abuja accord with other presidential candidates, saying having sworn to an oath as the President of the nation, he should not have allowed himself to be dragged into signing such document.

He warned that his group would respond to the attack on the President proportionately.

He said: “There is an establishment pattern of pre-and-post election violence in the North. In the 1950s, when Awolowo was campaigning in the North, he went with helicopter and he was mobbed. People said he was flying over their houses and peeping on their wives. That has continued and everywhere in the country people say leave them alone, we don’t want any trouble but the rule of the game has changed.

“For every action, there would be an opposite and equal reaction. I knew that the signing of the accord was useless and that the President subjected himself to sign such an accord, for me it was out of place.

“The President is an humble person, he does things that even surprise some of us and make us sometimes to be very angry.

“To be very frank, on that day they were signing the accord, I was very angry, signing with who? The President has sworn to protect every Nigerian. So why would he after taken a constitutional oath, subject himself to another oath that would be stronger than the oath he took when he took office after being elected voluntarily by the people of Nigeria?”

For the very first time the insanity in Dokubo left him partially. He made a point against Jonathan but forgot the reason why he signed the accord agreement. He signed it because the president has breached the oath he sworn to protect Nigerians. Again his parochial subjective reasoning took over part of him by referring to attack on Awolowo campaign in the North but turn blind eyes to Onitsha attack on Chief Awolowo that damaged his helicopter. Dokubo has been preaching violence because that is what he feeds from, he will soon discover the end of violent people like him with Boko Haram will be bitter.